


Perpetual Feeling in the Grown-up World

by tocourtdisaster



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Coming of Age, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-08
Updated: 2011-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocourtdisaster/pseuds/tocourtdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joanna Treadway meets Leonard McCoy when she’s seven and a half years old. She hates him immediately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perpetual Feeling in the Grown-up World

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to [](http://caitri.livejournal.com/profile)[**caitri**](http://caitri.livejournal.com/) and [](http://gadgetorious.livejournal.com/profile)[**gadgetorious**](http://gadgetorious.livejournal.com/) for cheering me on and ~~enabling me~~ letting me bounce ideas off of them while I battled with a Joanna who defied being restricted by a plot for several thousand words.
> 
> The title for this comes from "Roy Walker" by Belle & Sebastian.

She meets Leonard McCoy when she's seven and a half years old and is convinced for the longest time that she hates everything about him. He's loud and he doesn't make any sense when he talks and his friends aren't very nice to her. Oh, they think they're being nice, but they're not, not really. It'll be years before she learns the word _condescending_ , but that's exactly how Joanna is treated by her father's friends.

  


\------

  
Even as an adult, Joanna's not privy to her parents' entire history. She knows that they met in college, when Mom was studying law and Len was studying medicine, she knows they married young, that they divorced young, that Mom found out she was pregnant with Joanna two weeks after Len left for good.

Joanna knows that her conception was a mistake, though Mom's never put it quite like that.

"We were stupid," Mom tells her when she's sixteen. "We were angry and we'd just finalized the divorce. We were thinking with our libidos, not our heads. I mean, it's not like our marriage fell apart because of a lack of chemistry."

"Seriously, Mom? Too much information," Joanna groans, trying to will the images of Mom and Len _together_ like _that_ out of her head.

So, no, Joanna doesn't know everything about her parents' breakup, but she knows just enough to blame Len for most it.

  


\------

  
At the age of two, Joanna is her mother's flower girl. She doesn't remember the wedding, but she knows it happened because there are framed photos on the mantle and snapshots in her digital albums. There's one photo in particular that's her favorite and it's the one that she's had on her bedside table for as long as she can remember.

Mom and Dad are standing in front of a blooming cherry blossom tree, Mom in her lacy white gown and Dad in his tuxedo, and they're both smiling at Joanna, who's held securely in Dad's arms, curls escaping from her mini up-do, as she reaches for the flowers on a low-hanging branch.

They all look so happy.

 _That's_ Joanna's real family, not Len who was never around and didn't even know that Joanna existed until he'd gone and helped save the entire Federation a dozen times over.

Oh, she knows that Mom's to blame for that, too; after all, she's the one who never told Len that she was pregnant, but that doesn't stop Joanna from laying most of the blame at Len's feet, even though she’s mostly come to terms with her relationship with him and his relationship with Jim and this whole other family of hers that she hardly ever sees.

It's easy to blame someone you don't really know for all of your problems even if you know it’s not fair of you to do so.

  


\------

  
They watch on the newsvids as _Enterprise_ maneuvers into spacedock after her first successful five year mission of making treaties and battling Klingons and Cardassians and Romulans. Joanna's between Mom and Dad on the couch, eyes glued to the screen; they just finished a unit in school about Starfleet and Joanna's been devouring any and all information she can find. It was her idea in the first place to watch _Enterprise_ come home.

Joanna's too busy watching the ship to really notice that Mom keeps twisting her ring around and around on her finger, a nervous habit that Joanna will inherit in later years. What she _does_ notice is Dad reaching over her lap to grab a hold of Mom's hand, stilling her nervous movements.

Later that night, after the excitement has worn off and Joanna's half asleep, she hears her parents arguing quietly.

"Don't you think he deserves to know?" Dad asks. "After all these years, don't you think it's time to finally tell him?"

"No, I don't," Mom says. "He's the one who left. It's not like he ever made the effort to get in touch once he was gone."

"And why would he? He had no idea, Joce, but you did."

"So what? You think I should tell him and rip this family apart?"

"No. I think you should tell him because he deserves to know and let me support you in whatever way I can," Dad says and he sounds not quite angry and not quite sad and it'll be years before Joanna can identify the emotion she hears in his voice as resignation.

"Len doesn't deserve jack shit from me, Clay, and you should be the first person to realize that," Mom says and she _does_ sound angry. Whoever this Len guy is, Mom's definitely not happy with him.

"I'm not saying you should do it just for him," Dad says. "I think Joanna deserves to meet him at least once."

"Why? You're her father, Clay, not him!" Mom says and Joanna flinches fully awake at how loud her voice is. "You've been here her entire life while he's been off gallivanting across the galaxy. You're really telling me that you want him to butt into our life? What if he wants to be her father? Where does that leave you?"

"You keep forgetting that I knew Len before, too," Dad says and his voice is much quieter than Mom's, but still loud enough that Joanna can hear him clearly through her partially open bedroom door. "He's not the type of man to demand what he knows he can't ever get."

"I just don't want to turn Jo's entire life upside down needlessly."

Joanna strains her ears, but she can't make out what Dad says in reply and she falls asleep soon after, wondering who this Len guy is and why he makes Mom so angry, but by the time she wakes up in the morning, she's completely forgotten.

  


\------

  
Six days after _Enterprise_ docks above Earth for the first time in five years, Joanna Treadway meets Leonard McCoy and hates him immediately.

  


\------

  
"I don't wanna wear my white tights, Mom. I wanna wear my striped ones," Joanna whines, tugging on the bottom hem of her yellow polka dot dress. "White is boring."

"The striped ones don't match your dress, baby," Mom tells her, trying to wrangle Joanna's curls into something resembling order. "Don't you want to look pretty today?"

"The striped ones _are_ pretty," Joanna grumps. She knows she shouldn't pout, but she doesn't want to wear the stupid white tights.

"Joanna, please," Mom says, tugging too sharply at Joanna's hair as she works it into a braid. "It's important to your daddy and me that you be on your best behavior today."

"I don't get what the big deal is. It's just lunch with one of daddy's friends."

Mom doesn't say anything for a long time. She just finishes braiding Joanna's hair, covering Joanna's eyes with one hand while her other hand wields the hair spray. When she's done, she sits next to Joanna.

"Sweetie, what if I told you that a long time ago, before your daddy and I got married, I was married to Mister McCoy?" Mom asks. "And that Daddy is your real daddy, but that Mister McCoy is your father, too?"

"I wouldn't believe you because we learned in school that humans only have two real parents and lots of times they have stepparents, but never three real parents, not like Andorians who have four parents," Joanna says. They just learned about this last week, so she knows what she's talking about.

"Jo, baby, Mister McCoy is your father," Mom says. "Your daddy, the one who's been around your whole life, is your stepfather."

"So what?" Joanna says. "I can't wear the striped tights because he's my father? That's stupid."

  


\------

  
Daddy was supposed to meet them at the restaurant, but he called Mom while they were in the car. Joanna only heard her mother’s side of the conversation, but it was enough to know that Mom’s not happy about Daddy getting stuck at work. So now it's just the two of them at the table waiting for Mister McCoy to show up.

Joanna's playing with the lemon in her tea, poking it down to the bottom of her glass with the end of her straw. Mom's flipping through the menu even though she always gets the same thing here, using her thumb to turn her ring around and around on her finger.

"I'm bored," Joanna announces as she tries to make the lemon dance in her tea.

"I know, baby," Mom says and rubs Joanna's back. "Do you want to read on my PADD?"

"Yeah," Joanna says. Like there's ever any answer but 'yes' to that question. "Duh."

"Manners, please, young lady."

"Yes, I'd like to read on your PADD, Mom," Joanna recites, practically snatching the PADD out of Mom's hands almost before it's all the way out of her purse. She's four pages into _Peter Pan_ when she hears Mom take a deep breath before she stands up and steps around the table.

Joanna looks up from the PADD to see a man with dark hair the same color as hers standing in front of Mom. He's wearing a green shirt with a pair of sunglasses hanging over his collar and jeans and Joanna's jealous that _he_ got to wear what he wanted, unlike her and her white tights.

"Hey, Joce," he says and he sounds weird. Mom told her on the way over here than Mister McCoy was from Georgia, but he doesn't much sound like it.

"Len," Mom says, giving him a quick hug. "You're looking well."

"You, too," Mister McCoy says, gesturing towards the table. He doesn't sit till Mom's all settled in her seat, something that Daddy does, too. "So you must be Joanna."

Joanna nods and goes back to her book.

"Jo, sweetie, it's time to put the PADD away," Mom says and Joanna sighs and powers it down after bookmarking her spot. Mom slips it back into her purse and Joanna goes back to playing with the lemon in her tea.

The three of them sit there in silence for a long minute. The waitress comes by and takes Mister McCoy's drink order and then they sit in silence again. The waitress comes by and takes their food order and then they sit in silence again.

Joanna hates sitting quietly, but she hates talking with strangers even more, so she just twirls her straw around in her drink, hoping Mom and Mister McCoy will start to talk soon so she can pretend that she's involved while not really paying attention.

“How have you been?” Mister McCoy finally asks, hand wrapped tight around his own glass of tea.

“We’ve been good,” Mom says. She takes a sip of her water. “I’ve got a pretty good case load and Clay’s firm is working on the expansion of the hospital’s new pediatric unit. And Joanna here is in the first grade and learning every little thing she can.”

“Oh, yeah?” And now Mister McCoy’s looking at Joanna and she notices for the first time that his eyes are kind of green and kind of brown and maybe a little bit blue, just like hers. Joanna’s never seen anyone else with eyes like that; Mom’s always told her that they’re what make her extra, super-duper special.

But now here’s Mister McCoy with eyes just like hers and she suddenly doesn’t feel as special as she did ten minutes ago.

“What’s your favorite thing to learn about?” Mister McCoy asks, smiling a little at her.

“None of your business,” Joanna tells him, crossing her arms over her chest and slouching down in her seat.

“Joanna, where are your manners?” Mom asks. “Answer Mister McCoy, please.”

“No. It’s none of his business,” Joanna says and she already knows that she can outstubborn Mom; now, it’s only a question of how long she’ll be grounded for mouthing off.

“Joanna Rose Treadway.” Yeah, she’s in pretty big trouble if Mom’s using all three names. “I did not raise you to be a heathen. Now answer the question.”

“It’s okay, Joce,” Mister McCoy says. “She doesn’t have to answer if she doesn’t want to. It’s not important.”

“Yes, she does have to answer, Len,” Mom says and Joanna’s glad that now _he’s_ the center of Mom’s attention instead of her because a genuinely angry Mom is not a good thing to have to deal with. “It’s not a matter of whether it was important or not; it’s a matter of principle. Not that you’d ever know about that sort of thing.”

Joanna doesn’t understand what Mom means, but she knows, just based on Mister McCoy’s face, that it must not have been very nice.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Mister McCoy says so quietly that Joanna almost doesn’t hear him. He pushes back his chair and stands and says, “Good luck with your lives. Maybe I’ll see you again in another eight years.”

“Typical Leonard McCoy,” Mom says to his back. “Always running away from uncomfortable situations.”

“That’s not fair, Jocelyn, and you know it,” Mister McCoy says and Joanna is so far from being able to understand what they’re really talking about that she might as well not even be here. Mister McCoy is still standing with his back to the table and he speaks so quietly that Joanna can hardly hear him. “I only left because you gave me no other option.”

“Oh, so it’s not fair for me to insult you, but it’s fair for you to put the blame all on me?” Mom asks and Joanna’s certain that they’ve forgotten she’s even here. “It takes two to tango, Len.”

“Be that as it may,” Mister McCoy says, finally turning around to look at Mom, “I’m not going to argue with you about it in public. Give me a call once you’ve calmed down and we can try this again because, whether you believe it or not, I’d like to get to know Joanna.”

And with that, he turns and walks away, leaving the two of them at their table.

  


\------

  
Years and years later, Joanna’s having lunch with Len and Jim when she remembers, for no particular reason, the first time she ever met her father. Maybe it’s because the restaurant they’re in reminds her of the restaurant from that day when she was seven; maybe it’s the fact that Len asks how she’s doing in her classes and which ones she’s enjoying the most so far.

Joanna takes a sip of her tea and says to Len, “You know, the first time we met, I didn’t like you at all.”

“I liked you very much the first time we met,” Len tells her and, much to her surprise, she believes him.

“I thought you were completely insane,” Jim says before taking a drink of his milkshake. Joanna just throws her napkin at his face.

  


\------

  
Joanna meets Jim the day after her eighth birthday. She doesn’t know that she’s going to meet Captain Kirk, who’s something of a hero to her; all she knows is she’s going to meet Len’s friend, the one who serves on _Enterprise_ with him, the one he told her a few weeks ago that he wouldn’t mind marrying if he thought they were the type of couple who would get married.

She’d been confused by that; don’t all couples get married eventually? How can they have kids if they’re not married?

“Well,” Len had said and even at the age of almost-eight, Joanna had recognized his deer-in-the-headlights look for what it was. “I’ve already got you and Jim’s got a little boy, so I think we’re all set on kids, kiddo.”

So now they’re sitting in Len’s apartment, waiting for this Jim to show up. He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago and Len’s been grumbling about lazy bastards for half that time. Joanna doesn’t mind, though, since Jim not being here means she can read her book without interruption before they leave to get lunch.

It’s all Mom’s fault, really, for giving her the first book in an ancient series about wizards and magic and now she’s halfway through the second book and her curiosity won’t let her put it down until she finds out who’s been attacking the students.

The door to the apartment slides open, but Joanna doesn’t bother to look up from her PADD, at least until she hears a man say, “Hey, Bones, sorry I’m late. Spock had some reservations about the crew roster that he couldn’t wait until tomorrow to discuss.”

Joanna knows that voice. She’s heard it at all the _Enterprise_ press conferences over the past six months, reassuring everyone that the flagship will head out on schedule, better than ever, that the best crew in Starfleet would be back out in the black soon enough.

Joanna keeps her eyes on Len as he stands and steps around the couch, watches as _Captain Kirk_ reaches out and kisses Len right on the mouth before he steps around him and over to Joanna.

“Hi, I’m Jim,” he says, sitting down on the coffee table in front of her. “You must be Joanna.”

“Oh my god,” Joanna says. She sets her PADD down on the couch before she stands and, completely ignoring Captain Kirk, she walks over to Len and punches him right in the arm. “You never told me you wanted to marry _Captain Kirk_!”

“Marry?” she hears Captain Kirk say, but she ignores him in favor of glaring at Len.

“ _Captain Kirk_!” she repeats, punching Len again. How could he have not told her that he was in love with her _hero_?

“Seriously, Joanna, calm down,” Len says, crouching down so that now she’s taller than him and setting his big hands on her shoulders. “Yes, Jim is Captain Kirk, but he’s still just Jim. Trust me. He’s not as glamorous as all the newsvids want you to believe.”

“Gee thanks, Bones,” Captain Kirk mutters, but both Joanna and Len ignore him.

“You should’ve told me,” Joanna sulks, looking over Len’s shoulder towards the kitchen window.

“I didn’t realize it’d be such a big deal or I would’ve, kiddo,” Len says and Joanna looks back at him.

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Okay,” Joanna says. “Can we go get lunch now? I’m starving.”

“Sure,” Len says, dropping his hands from her shoulders and standing with a couple of scary sounding pops from his knees. “How would you like to try Andorian?”

“I’ve had it before,” Joanna tells him. “My friend Keval is Andorian.”

“Well, how about good old fashioned Italian, then?” Len asks, reaching over the back of the couch for her PADD, which she stashes in her overnight bag. “Jim, what do you say?”

“I wanna know more about this whole marrying business,” Captain Kirk says; he’s still sitting on the coffee table, looking completely confused.

“Do I have to wear my jacket?” Joanna asks, hoping that if she ignores Captain Kirk that he’ll get his act together and they can get to lunch sooner.

“Yes,” Len says, holding it out for her. Joanna sighs, but puts it on and lets Len steer her towards the door with a hand on her shoulder. “You coming, Jim?”

“Seriously, Bones, I wanna know about this!” Captain Kirk calls, jogging to catch up with them, walking on Joanna’s other side as they head for the lift. “You wanna marry me?”

“Later, Jim,” Len says, and Joanna puts the whole thing out her mind as they step into the lift.

  


\------

  
Three days before _Enterprise_ leaves Earth orbit, Joanna finds herself sitting next to Jim’s son David at Len and Jim’s wedding.

“I guess I’m your sister now,” she tells him, aware of Jim’s mom on David’s other side listening to her. “I’ve never had a brother before, so it’s not really my fault if I mess up sometimes, okay?”

David just stares at her for a minute before holding out his green sippy cup. “You can have some if you want,” he says.

Jim’s mom laughs and says, “David, that’s very sweet, but I’m sure Joanna doesn’t want to share your juice.” She picks David up and sets him on her lap and doesn’t even flinch when a bit of juice leaks out of his cup and onto her skirt. She pats the now empty seat next to her and Joanna obligingly scoots over.

“I don’t think we’ve met yet,” she says with a smile.

“You’re Mrs. Kirk, Jim’s mom,” Joanna says. She may not have ever met the woman before, but she _does_ recognize her from old newsvids and the pictures that have started to appear on the walls of Len’s apartment recently.

“That I am,” she says, laughing a bit. “I know you don’t really know your dad or Jim that well, and that you don’t know me at all, so I’m not going to do anything silly like ask you to call me Grandma, but you can call me Winona if you’d like.”

“Okay,” Joanna says, fidgeting with her skirt. Mom had wanted her to wear a dress with a big poofy skirt, but Len had told her she could wear whatever she wanted, so she’s in her favorite green dress, the one with the lace around the bottom that she always plays with when she’s bored.

Before the silence between them gets any more awkward, a man in an admiral’s uniform stands up from his seat on the other side of the aisle and steps to the front of the room and then Len and Jim walk up to him from the back of the room.

Joanna can’t remember Mom and Dad’s wedding, so she’s not sure what to expect of Len and Jim’s. She’s pretty sure that whatever expectations she may have had don’t go along with what actually happens.

“I’m not going to give a big long speech about love and happiness,” the admiral says and Joanna’s pretty sure she’s never heard anything like this in the vids that Mom sometimes lets her watch. “We all know that Jim and Leonard are here to get married and we all know that they both hate a lot of pomp and ceremony. They’ve asked me to officiate because they know I’ll humor them.”

There’s laughter from the dozen or so people present, but Joanna doesn’t see what’s so funny. Must be a grown-up thing.

“So, let’s get straight to business, shall we?” The admiral waves his hand a bit and Jim and Len turn to face each other. Jim reaches out and grabs Len’s hand; Len frowns and Jim smiles and this is the weirdest wedding _ever_. “Jim and Leonard have written their own vows, so I’ll just let them get to it.”

Jim is the first one to go. “Bones, this has been a long time coming, even though it took your daughter spilling the beans to get you to admit to it. I can’t promise I’ll always listen to you and I can’t promise I won’t risk my fool neck four times a week. I can’t promise I won’t leave my towels on the floor or that I’ll ever learn to make decent coffee.”

“Well that’s just too much to ask for, isn’t it?” Len says just loud enough for Joanna to hear. Next to her, Winona snorts a little, obviously trying not to laugh.

“That said,” Jim says, just a little louder than before, “what I _can_ promise is that I’ll always try to come back in few enough pieces for you to put together again and that I won’t use your toothbrush without asking and that I’ll be around to teach our kids how to hotwire cars and hack computer systems.”

“How romantic,” Len mutters, apparently loud enough for everyone to hear because everyone laughs again. Even David is giggling, but Joanna bets it’s only because his grandma is laughing. Joanna doesn’t laugh; this whole wedding is too weird for her.

“You’re stuck with me, Bones, like it or not,” Jim says with a grin. Winona sniffles and Joanna wonders why she looks like she’s about ready to burst into tears; it must be another grown-up thing that Joanna doesn’t understand.

“God only know why, but I’m looking forward to being stuck with you, despite the fact you’re a blanket hog,” Len tells Jim and Joanna’s starting to wonder if they’re ever gonna get to the ‘honor and obey’ part. That’s her favorite bit from the vids. “I’m always gonna be a grumpy bastard, though, so you’d best not get it into your head that being married to me is gonna be some walk in the park.”

“Never,” Jim says and Len just shakes his head.

“I’ll do my best to keep my grouching to a minimum and to leave work at work. When you come home after risking your neck, I’ll always fix you up, no matter how much I want to slap you upside the head for being a moron. And I’m apparently going to be talking our kids down from whatever fool-headed ideas you plant in their minds until the end of time.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jim says and Len finally cracks a smile.

“Well, now that that’s out of the way, unless there are any objections,” the admiral says, pausing for a few seconds, “I can now pronounce you two married. Go on and give us a kiss.”

Joanna expects them to have a quick kiss, the kind she’s seen them share a bunch of times, the kind she sees Mom and Dad share a hundred times a day, but that’s not at all what she sees. What she sees is Jim step forward until he’s practically on Len’s feet and wrap his arms around Len and then lean forward until the only thing keeping Len from falling flat on his back is Jim’s arms. And _that’s_ when Jim finally kisses Len while everyone is hooting and hollering.

“They are _so_ weird,” Joanna mutters as Jim and Len right themselves and walk back down the aisle hand-in-hand.

“Oh, honey, you don’t know the half of it,” Winona says with a laugh. She stands up and props David up on her hip and holds out her other hand for Joanna to take. “Come on, I heard Jim talked Len into a German chocolate wedding cake.”

  


\------

  
Jim and Len ship out soon after and Joanna doesn’t see them in person again until the end of their tour.

It’s a long five years.

  


\------

  
Mom says later that Joanna hit puberty hard, but at the time it’s happening, she doesn’t say much about it at all. All they do is argue about everything and nothing: boys, school, Joanna’s hair and clothes, music. Anything and everything is fair game.

Dad tries to intervene a few times, but there’s nothing he can say or do that can stop Joanna and her mother verbally going after each other, so he eventually stops trying.

The summer after Joanna turns twelve, she decides she’s sick and tired of putting up with Mom and her stupid rules, so she packs a bag and snitches Mom’s credit chip out of her purse and catches the bus to the shuttleport.

She buys a one-way ticket to Cedar Rapids because civilian shuttles don’t fly into Riverside and says goodbye to Atlanta.

She doesn’t expect to be nabbed by security as soon as her shuttle lands, or to be frogmarched into a conference room where she’s left to sit and stew for the longest time before Winona walks in.

“What are you trying to do, Joanna?” Winona asks, grabbing Joanna’s bag and gesturing for Joanna to follow her. “Your mom called the police as soon as she realized you were gone. They traced her credit chip and figured you were on your way to see me.”

“So, what, are you gonna send me home?” Joanna asks, trailing along behind Winona and not really paying attention to where they’re headed, so it comes as a surprise when they step out into the sunlight instead of into the departures area. “Wait, so you’re not sending me home?”

“You went to all this trouble to come see me,” Winona says. She heads for a blue car and unlocks it before tossing Joanna’s bag in the backseat. “I talked your parents into letting you stay for a little while before I send you home with your tail between your legs.” She meets Joanna’s eye over the top of the car. “I’m not going to regret that decision, am I?”

“No, ma’am,” Joanna mutters, already regretting Winona’s decision. What has she gotten herself into?

“Good.” Winona gets in the car and Joanna reluctantly follows her example. “So, what do you say we stop by this little barbecue place I know for lunch?”

“I don’t eat meat,” Joanna says. It’s a new decision, one made right this second just to be contrary, but it’s not like she hasn’t thought about it before. She just really likes bacon too much to give up meat all together.

“Okay then,” Winona says, not even bothered and that’s not at all the reaction Joanna was going for. “If you can wait until we get to Riverside, there’s a restaurant that has quite a few vegetarian dishes to cater to the Vulcans who work at the shipyards. Their plomeek soup is particularly good.”

So they have lunch at this little dinner that really does have the best plomeek soup Joanna’s ever tasted and then they head back to Winona’s house, where Winona sits Joanna down in front of the comm screen straight away and establishes a link with _Enterprise_ almost faster that Joanna can blink.

“How did you do that?” Joanna demands as the Starfleet logo spins on the screen while they wait for the call to go through. “I have to wait _days_ to get clearance to talk with Len.”

“It’s all about who you know,” Winona answers as the screen resolves into the face of a communications officer Joanna’s spoken with multiple times over the past few years.

“Mrs. Kirk, Miss Treadway, how are you today?” he asks and Joanna can see that he’s already reaching forward to transfer their call. “The captain is on a call with Headquarters, but Doctor McCoy should be available to take your call in the meantime.”

“That’s wonderful, Ensign, thank you,” Winona says, and the screen goes back to the rotating Starfleet logo while Ensign What’s-his-face connects their call. “Better think quick how you’re gonna explain this to your dad, kiddo.”

“Couldn’t give me any warning, could you?” Joanna mutters and spends the next few seconds furiously pondering possible lies to tell Len before dismissing the whole thing as futile. She’s a terrible liar and not even a shaky comm signal could mask that.

Before she’s ready, Len’s face is on the screen. He’s obviously still on shift; he’s wearing scrubs and Joanna can see nurses bustling around in the background through the window in Len’s office.

“Hey, Jo, I didn’t realize you were visiting Iowa,” he says, and it sounds more like a question than a statement.

“I’ll just leave you two to talk, then,” Winona says softly. She lays her hand on Joanna’s shoulder for just a second before she walks away towards the front porch.

“It was kind of a last minute trip,” Joanna tells Len, hoping he’ll let it drop, but he must’ve been taking lessons from Jim because he just keeps on it.

“Your mom’s never been the kind of person for last minute, kiddo. She always had everything planned down to the minute and I can’t imagine she’s changed much in the past decade.”

“Well, no, but it wasn’t her idea for me to visit Winona,” Joanna admits, twisting her fingers together in her lap, out of sight of the camera.

“Let me guess,” Len says, leaning towards the vidscreen, his elbows on his desk. “You stole the money for a shuttle ticket from your mom and left without a word, thinking you’d be better off with Winona than at home, only you got caught.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“You seriously need to stop listening to Jim’s stories, Joanna. His childhood transgressions are _not_ something to be emulated.”

“Why not?” Joanna wants to know. “It looks to me like Jim turned out pretty well!”

“Yeah, well, that was a pretty close thing at times!” Len shouts right back and now Joanna knows that she doesn’t get her temper just from Mom. “Ask Winona some time about how Jim thought driving a car off a cliff was a good idea or how he thought hitchhiking to St. Louis by himself at the age of fifteen would be a grand time!”

“I’m not like Jim!” Joanna twists her fingers together to keep from pounding her fists against the desk or even the comm screen. “I just wanted to get away from Mom!”

“Believe me, I completely understand that desire, Joanna, but there are better ways to go about it,” Len says, taking deep, even breaths that Joanna finds herself copying. “I’m sure if you’d asked and arranged this properly with Winona, it wouldn’t have been a big deal for you to head up to Iowa for a while.”

“How do you know that?” Joanna asks because she doesn’t know and she wants to know how Len can be so certain when he’s hardly spoken with Mom since they got divorced before Joanna was even born.

“She’s your mother and she loves you and even if you’re having a hard time with each other right now, I can promise you that she just wants to do the right thing,” Len says and, for some reason that Joanna can’t explain, she believes him.

“Yeah, okay, so I screwed up,” Joanna is willing to admit, but that doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it. “Why couldn’t Winona have just told me this?”

“Because she’s sadistic and would probably enjoy throwing me in front of a bus just to see my look of panic before I got flattened,” Len says and Joanna is _so_ not going to ask.

“You’re going to make me call Mom, aren’t you?” she asks, all of the fight suddenly gone out of her.

“I’m not going to _make_ you do anything,” Len says, “since I’m something like fifty-seven lightyears away right now and it’s coming up on dinner time and I haven’t eaten since breakfast, so that unfortunately takes precedence right now.”

He’s grinning and Joanna can’t help but smile as she says, “You’re a jerk, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.” He straightens in his seat. “Now, I’m going to pull the dad card, even though we both know I probably shouldn’t. Please call your mother and listen to Winona and if you’d like to talk with Jim, make sure to sit in on Winona’s weekly comm call, okay?”

“Okay,” Joanna agrees. “Thanks for not completely flipping out on me. Enjoy your dinner.”

“Will do. Love you, kiddo.”

Even after all these years, it’s still weird to hear Len say that because, in Joanna’s mind, he’s not really her dad, more like a cool uncle or maybe even step-dad, and those really aren’t people who say they love you all that often, even if they do.

And even after all these years, Joanna can’t bring herself to say it back. She knows she can love Len and Dad both and that loving the both of them doesn’t decrease how much she loves them individually, but it still feels like she’s betraying Dad every time she even thinks about saying it to Len, so she just doesn’t.

“Yeah,” she says instead, knowing it’s awkward, but not able to do anything else about it. “I’ll talk to you later.”

She disconnects the call before Len can reply.

  


\------

  
After that summer, probably because of that summer, Winona becomes a regular fixture in Joanna’s life. They exchange e-mails and comm each other when the fancy takes them and Joanna goes to visit a handful of times a year.

What used to be Jim’s room slowly turns into Joanna’s room and Sam’s old room gets a fresh coat of paint and a new set of posters and becomes David’s room and, though they’re rarely both in Iowa at the same time, they get up to some pretty awesome mischief when they are.

Take for instance the time when Joanna decided she wanted to spend her seventeenth birthday with Winona and David managed to talk his mom into letting him come for the weekend and they stole Winona’s car and a bottle of vodka and ended up sitting in a damp patch of grass by the side of the road drunkenly picking out constellations before they ended up spending the rest of the night sitting in a jail cell waiting for Winona to come bail them out.

(And, oh, had Joanna gotten her ass chewed out for that. Winona had let her off the hook, but she was the only one.

Mom: “Joanna Rose! I raised you better than this!”

Dad: “How could you be so irresponsible?”

Jim: “David is _twelve_ , Joanna! I get that you’re almost old enough and you think it’s cool, whatever, but David is barely more than a _child_ and I can guarantee you that if anything like this ever happens again, you two will never again be in the same timezone at the same time.”

Len hadn’t said anything; he’d just sat next to Jim while he ranted, the most disappointed look on his face that Joanna had ever seen.)

Then there’s the time not long after Joanna ran away from home that David came to stay for three weeks while his mom was off on some sort of research trip and they accidentally set the barn on fire.

To this day, Joanna thinks that’s the best way she could’ve ever gotten to know her step-brother.

  


\------

  
Both Joanna and David are spending a few weeks with Winona before the new school year starts when Winona gets an emergency call in the middle of the night.

Joanna fell asleep on the couch earlier and wakes up when the comm unit starts chiming incessantly. She thinks she might recognize the incoming code, but she can’t place it right now, and is ready to ignore it and let whoever it is leave a message when Winona comes down the stairs, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Who is it?” she asks through a yawn and Joanna just steps aside so she can answer.

“I hope you know it’s the middle of the night here,” Winona starts to say, but stops cold when Commander Spock’s face appears on the screen. “What’s happened?”

“Ma’am,” Spock inclines his head and Joanna wants to hurry him up because something is obviously _wrong_ and it has to do with either Jim or Len and she needs to know what it is and that they’ll be okay. “Your son has been wounded and is currently listed in critical but stable condition. Doctor McCoy wished for me to convey this information to you, as he has removed himself from duty and is unadvisedly spending all of his time in Sickbay at the Captain’s side.”

“What happened, Commander?” Winona repeats and Spock answers, though Joanna mostly tunes him out after a few words for two reasons: one, she doesn’t understand the politics behind _why_ Jim got hurt and two, she doesn’t understand most of the words that Spock is saying. The basic gist of it is that Jim was being a big damn hero and about got his head ripped off. Literally.

“Do you want me to get David?” Joanna asks once Spock’s signed off. Winona’s just sitting there, staring at the blank screen. It’s really starting to freak Joanna out. “Winona?”

“No, go ahead and let him sleep,” Winona eventually says and when she turns to look at Joanna, she looks like she’s aged ten years in the span of ten minutes. “ _Enterprise_ is headed for Denobula, since it has the best medical facilities in that part of the galaxy. I’ll get David and I on a shuttle tomorrow, but for now, let him sleep. He’s gonna need it.”

“You’ll call me at Mom’s and let me know how he’s doing, right?” Joanna asks, still with a knot of fear in the pit of her stomach. She’s never known anyone who’s been hurt badly before and she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to be relieved that he’ll be fine or freaked out that he almost died or some combination of the two.

“Of course,” Winona says, like it’s a foregone conclusion. “I’ll even make Len call you himself, if I can drag him away from Jim long enough to sit in front of the comm screen. And when Jim’s up for it, I’ll make him call you, too.”

“Okay, good,” Joanna says, though she kind of feels better now, she doesn’t make a move for the stairs or the couch or any place she could get some more sleep.

“You want some pancakes?” Winona asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer, just heads for the kitchen. The glare from the overhead light is near blinding when Winona turns it on, Joanna two steps behind her. Winona burns two whole batches of batter before Joanna makes her sit down and drink a glass of water and then Joanna sits there helplessly while Winona pulls herself back together.

After a while, Winona looks over at her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I think I’m just going to take a shower and get ready to leave. Help yourself to whatever you can find, okay?”

“Thanks,” Joanna says to Winona’s back, the other woman already halfway across the kitchen. She sits at the table for a long time, tracing her fingernail in the grooves on the tabletop. She eventually heads upstairs and packs up her things and gets dressed and pointedly does _not_ listen to Winona wake up David with the news about his dad.

They part ways at the shuttleport a few hours later, Joanna headed back to her regular life in Atlanta and Winona and David headed for a commercial transport that’ll take them to Denobula and their vigil over Jim.

Joanna’s PADD pings as she’s waiting to disembark her shuttle, alerting her to an incoming text message. It’s from Len.

 _Hey, kiddo,_

 _I know you must be worried. I wanted to let you know that Jim’s going to be fine because he’s too much of a stubborn bastard to die on me now. I wish you could come out and meet us, but it’s probably better that you don’t. Hell, if Jim had his way, Winona and David wouldn’t even be coming out. He hates having a fuss made._

 _I’ll let you know as soon as I know any more._

 _Love, LHM_

Joanna hesitates for a few long minutes about how to reply, even types out three completely different replies before she finally hits ‘send’ just before she steps off of her shuttle.

 _You let me know the minute Jim’s condition changes, all right? And tell him I said to get well soon or else._

 _Love, Joanna_

It’s the first time Joanna’s ever said the word ‘love’ to Len and it’s weird how normal it feels.

  


\------

  
The ballroom is bigger than Joanna had expected and there are a _ton_ more people here than she could’ve ever imagined. It’s not that she didn’t think people would come to Jim’s promotion celebration, she just hadn’t expected him to invite _this many_ people.

There’s a huge line of people waiting to speak with Jim, so Joanna finds herself a seat not far from center stage and just watches. Jim has something to say to everyone, which means he knows at least a little bit about every person here and Joanna’s not sure why this surprises her.

“Is this seat taken?”

“Help yourself,” Joanna tells Len, letting him drop a kiss against the top her head before he sits next to her. She watches him watch Jim for a moment before she says, “He looks good.”

“Yeah,” Len agrees. “You can hardly tell that he almost died less than a year ago.”

“But he’s gonna be okay,” Joanna says and it isn’t a question. Jim’s too stubborn to die and if he’s made it this far, there’s no way he’s going to let a near mortal injury stop him now.

“Yeah, he’ll be just fine, if he could manage to not constantly overexert himself,” Len says and Joanna recognizes his expression from the one she sees in the mirror when she’s irritated with Mom or Dad or Len or anyone else in her big, messed-up family. It’s strange, even know, to realize just how much of herself she gets from Len.

There’s no way Jim heard Len over all the noise in the ballroom, but it’s almost like he did; he glances up from his conversation, says a few words to the commander in front of him, and then he’s sliding into the chair on Joanna’s other side.

“Hey, beautiful,” he greets and Joanna can’t help the flush she feels and is glad that she doesn’t show blushes easily. That’s definitely one thing she can thank Len for. “How are you?”

“I think I’m supposed to be the one asking that,” Joanna says, leaning over and giving him a careful hug. Up close, it’s easy to see the scars on Jim’s neck and Joanna doesn’t know much about anatomy, but she knows enough to know that Jim’s lucky to be alive based on where he was wounded.

“I am perfectly fine,” Jim says and Joanna can tell that he’s directing the comment to Len as much as to her. “I’m on cloud nine, actually. I’ve got my promotion and two of my favorite people in the world are here with me. There are very few things that could make this day any better.”

“Jim, are you getting sappy?” Joanna teases. She reaches over and gently pokes him in the ribs which elicits a grunt and a gentle slap against her arm.

“Of course not!” Jim protests. “I’m a commodore, now. Commodores don’t get sappy.”

“Uh huh.” Len couldn’t sound more skeptical if he tried and Joanna is inclined to agree. “Didn’t you say the same thing about Starfleet captains?”

Jim nods, but doesn’t say anything. Joanna’s curious as to where this is going, but is confident that Len won’t keep her hanging for long.

“And are you or are you not the same former Starfleet captain who got a little teary when Spock told you he wouldn’t be taking _Enterprise_ back out because he and Nyota were going to settle down and start a family?”

“Really, Jim?” Joanna giggles.

“Hey, I was on some seriously good painkillers at the time, so I can’t and won’t be held accountable for anything I did or did not do during that time period,” Jim says, nose up in the air, but with a grin threatening.

“Spoken like a true bullshitter,” Len says, to which Jim replies, “I think you mean _diplomat_ , Bones, not bullshitter.” And Len just laughs and says, “Same damn thing.”

This is pretty nice, Joanna decides as Len and Jim keep bickering back and forth. It’s weird and awesome and Joanna’s pretty sure she could get used to having days like this, so it’s a good thing she’ll have plenty of opportunity, what with Jim and Len settling on Earth for the foreseeable future, Jim teaching at the Academy and Len getting to be the big boss at SF Medical.

When it’s finally time for them to find their actual seats for dinner, Joanna links arms with Len and smiles when she sees that he’s grabbed Jim’s hand, and she sits next to Len at the head table and she smiles when Jim introduces her to Admiral Pike (the same admiral who married them all those years ago in the weirdest wedding Joanna has, to this day, ever seen) as his daughter and she toasts Jim with everyone else.

At the end of the evening, both Jim and Len walk her to the shuttleport.

“Comm me when you land,” Len says, hugging her tightly.

“Will do,” Joanna promises.

“Love you, kiddo.”

“Love you, too,” Joanna tells him, catching the surprise in his eyes when she pulls away. She’s been signing her letters that way for a while now, but it’s different to hear the words, Joanna knows.

She could get all introspective about it, but she instead throws her arms around Jim. “Try not to stress Len out too much, okay,” she tells him.

“Who, me?” Jim asks and Joanna can’t help but laugh. “We wish you could’ve stayed longer.”

“I know,” Joanna says, stepping back when Jim lets go of her. “But there was only so much time I could get excused from school, even with my step-dad getting a promotion. Besides, I’ll be coming to visit over the winter holiday. That’s not so long away.”

“And we are definitely looking forward to having you and David both here at the same time,” Jim assures her. “Now, you better get going before you miss your shuttle.”

“Yes, sir, Commodore Kirk, sir.” Joanna snaps off a nearly perfect regulation salute before turning on her heel and marching away. She hopes it looks as impressive as she thinks it does; she’s been practicing for _months_ to get it right, although it’s possible that the long skirt she’s wearing isn’t exactly conducive to the effect she’s going for.

Jim and Len’s laughter follows her to her gate and she’s smiling when she boards the shuttle for Atlanta.

  


\------

  
The first time all of Joanna’s parents are together in one room is the day she graduates university with a degree in architecture. Dad had been sure that her childhood dream to follow in his footsteps would fade, but right here and now, she can see how proud he is of her and how humbled he is to be the one she’s set out to be like.

They all sit together in the auditorium: Mom, Dad, Jim, Len, David, and Winona all lined up in a row. Joanna catches Jim’s eye during all the speeches that drag on and on and has to hold back her laughter when he rolls his eyes and fakes a yawn.

When she walks across the stage to accept her handshake and diploma, her family stands and cheers and generally embarrasses her, but she really can’t think of any other way she’d have it.

  
 **End**


End file.
